1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drawing apparatus and a control method of the drawing apparatus. Specifically, the present invention relates to a drawing apparatus for drawing an image on fingernails of hands and toenails of feet, and a control method of such drawing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A nail print apparatus is conventionally known and such apparatus includes a print head which prints using an ink jet method. The nail print apparatus prints a design image including color or a picture on a surface of a nail of a finger of a person. Such nail print apparatus is described in, for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-534083.
A print head used in the ink jet method prints on a recording medium by discharging droplets of ink from a nozzle provided on a face facing a print target so that the ink lands on the recording medium and is fixed.
However, the print head using the ink jet method has a nozzle with a hole with a small diameter. Therefore, there are limits such as ink including color material having particles with large diameters or ink with high viscosity cannot be used. Therefore, there have been limits in the nail design that could be printed.
In view of the above, a print apparatus using a plotter method is known, and such apparatus includes a drawing head with a pen attached. An image is drawn by bringing a tip portion of the pen in contact with a sheet (drawing screen). According to such print apparatus using the plotter method, since a pen is used, there are few limits of the ink that can be used. It is possible to consider employing such print apparatus using the plotter method as a nail print apparatus to perform nail print with bright colors using various ink.
However, the ink used in nail print dries easily. Therefore, the ink in the pen tip of the pen at the standby position may dry and the start of the drawing may be blurred. Moreover, if the print apparatus is left as is with the pen attached to the print apparatus for a long period of time, the ink at the pen tip dries completely and hardens, and further drawing may not be possible.
Turning to a print apparatus using the plotter method, The pen employed in the plotter comes into contact with a drawing screen with its own weight. If a cap which covers the pen tip is provided in a standby position, it is possible to drop the pen tip with its own weight in the cap at the standby position and to put the cap on the pen tip.
However, it is not possible to achieve enough sealing of the pen tip by merely placing the pen tip in the cap with its own weight and covering the cap on the pen tip.
Therefore, in employing the print apparatus with the above configuration in nail print, when the amount of time that the pen is in the standby position becomes long, the ink in the pen tip may dry, and the start of drawing could be blurred. Further, if the pen is left attached to the apparatus for a long period of time, the ink in the pen tip may dry and harden, and it may not be possible to use the pen any more. Therefore, the apparatus could not be put away in a state with the pen attached to the apparatus. The pen needed to be attached to the apparatus each time the apparatus is used and to be detached from the apparatus after the use of the apparatus. The pen needed to be stored so that the drying of the pen tip is prevented. Therefore, management of the pen has been troublesome.